NEWS: EDITORIAL: Brafflash

A Mild And Wholly Unnecessary Defense Of Zach Braff

Like you I check my favorite web sites daily to see what I missed while I was eating, sleeping, watching Heroes, etc. This includes pitchforkmedia.com and stylusmagazine.com (the best British equivalent I've found). Both reviewed The Shins highly anticipated Wincing the Night Away the day before it dropped, as is the custom, giving decent reviews (pitchfork = 7.0, stylus = A-). Both also pointed out how The Shins have been laboring in a shadow of "Braff-lash," a phenomenon resulting from Zach Braff's rapid ascendancy to mainstream pop status on the merits of his seeming likeable, earnest, emotive, and clever - and for his active promotion of indie-pop acts possessing similar qualities. That's my own definition but it's the best I was able to piece together.

My thoughts on shoehorning celebrity names into everyday language aside, this pinched my ear. Sure, the public has a saturation point for media personalities and will rightly reject those whose handlers don't know when to back off. I will also concede that Braff's on-screen persona can veer into some pretty thick cheese. But the guy has hardly entered the realm of celeb-ubiquity in a post Paris Hilton age, nor can his sappy, goofball antics disqualify him as socially relevant as long as there is a Hallmark store anywhere on Earth. Neither form of celebrity nuisance is at issue here. It’s a question of style vs. content.

If one has a negative reaction to Braff’s style - not necessarily who he is but the supposedly charming yet slightly smug characters he plays or his hipster dude-who-knew-about-Death-Cab-before-you persona, however artificially imposed it might be – then one might be inclined to reject another formal element with which he is associated, ie. music. It would be easy to reduce Braff’s man-boy character JD (Scrubs) to something so easily dismissible. The character is intentionally puddle deep, an innocent narrator and Chaplainesque clown meant to exist for thirty minutes, sell whatever NBC is selling and then evaporate. JD listens to Toto.


Braff, on the other hand, made a mix-tape that won him a Grammy (Garden State) and exposed a mainstream audience to the joys of a few bands they might not have otherwise heard. Dismissing Braff or his allegiance to a certain kind of music, however emotive or independent, makes the mistake of assuming that he is dictating a style rather than filling a need for content - style being what sounds good and content being what sounds right. Ultimately, it’s a bit of both.

The Shins and other bands do what they do independent of Zach Braff and his hair or whatever else it is about him people don’t like, and while Garden State’s popularity gained The Shins and Iron & Wine a larger audience, the music gained them critical acclaim. I hope Zach Braff continues to champion independent artists like Amos Lee, Rachael Yamagata, Turin Brakes, and Joshua Radin just like I will continue writing about them here, hoping my next mix-tape goes platinum.

For some real Braff-love check out this high-larious video on youtube.

NEWS: EDITORIAL: The Beard

In recognition of my own indefinite hiatus from shaving (effective February 1, 2007) The List takes a look at my favorite bearded artists of the day and the rise of Beardcore.

It should be acknowledged that The Beard is not only a product of testosterone and free will but also a sociopolitical climate.  The Beard made its most prominent modern appearance at a time when the expression of personal freedoms turned the Burma-Shaved 50s into the musical Hair by the end of the 60s.  The 70s saw a slow trimming of The Beard until it was rejected outright in the 80s by parallel counter and uber cultures whose respectively punk and yuppie values saw nothing but sloth and hypocrisy in the beards of their hippie forbearers.  The 90s offered a mild reaction to yuppiedom - the goatee - a trend co-opted then washed away by the silicon tsunami that closed the decade.  Finally, mid 00s, we find ourselves at a confluence of important social events.  The bottom dropped out of a promising, everybody-plays Internet economy returning power to The Man, always clean-shaved.  The Man also seems to be starting wars without much concern for the people on either side, fostering an environment ripe for protest, which has so far been ignored.  Musically, The Man is stacking the deck with recycled pop tripe as hairless as the prepubescent audience for which it is intended.  The frustration of feeling powerless to change the economic, political or entertainment world through participation or protest forces the disenfranchised to internalize the problem and seek a more personal expression of independence.  What's an artist to do?  Grow a beard.

Here's why:

1.  The Beard can create a greater sense of depth and commitment to one's creative pursuits, as if to say, "I'm a Genius and this is important, I can't be bothered to shave."

2.  The Beard offers a direct connection to the spirit of rugged independence that spawned Rock-n-Roll in the first place (not to mention the American Revolution, Civil War, Civil Rights movement, etc.).

There is plenty of evidence supporting #1.  Look at landmark Beatles albums Abbey Road and The White Album, both recorded during the band's bearded years.  Brian Wilson's mental fugue produced what turned out to be his most stirring work... and a beard.

There are a few important variants of #2: the Southern Independent (Little Feat, Allman Brothers, The Band); the Free Spirit (Jerry Garcia, George Clinton, Frank Zappa); and the Outlaw (Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings).  Each subgroup associates itself with a unique sense of nostalgia and/or optimism for The Beard and finds itself opposing the status quo within a genre of music when the climate is less than conducive to independent expression.

Socially relevant icons and occasional beard wearers Elvis Costello, Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan seem to equally support all of the ideas enumerated above, becoming models for generations of younger bearded artists.

Sure, The Beard has been used by some to claim a mature edge in spite of adolescent pop leanings or boyish handsomeness (see The Killers), while other genres never let The Beard go (bluegrass, heavy metal).  But now, in this moment of merging economic, political and musical climates, The Beard has given birth to its own scene:  Beardcore.

As defined by urban dictionary.com, beardcore is "a subgenre of indie music characterized by folk or country-twinged songwriters who intertwine wistfulness and irony in such a way that each element cannot be plucked from the tune.  They also wear beards."

Skipping over the erroneous "w" in what I'm assuming was meant to read "country-tinged," this definition lacks the musical breadth and conceptual specificity needed to properly situate The Beard in the music.  Post-rock guitar acts like Built to Spill and Band of Horses may sound different than beardcore poster band Iron & Wine but they share a dedication to the ideals of The Beard.

So from now on Beardcore will be defined as follows:  A subgenre of independent music sonically drawing on Americana, folk, and indie-rock committed to depth and creativity in songwriting, an earthy sense of individual independence, and beards.

Enjoy.

Today's Top 20 Bearded Artists

1. Sam Beam (Iron & Wine)
2. Will Oldham (Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Palace)
3. Doug Martsch (Built to Spill)
4. Jim James (My Morning Jacket)
5. ?uestlove (The Roots)
6. Ben Bridwell (Band of Horses)
7. Devendra Banhart
8. Wayne Coyne (Flaming Lips)
9. Patterson Hood (Drive By Truckers)
10. Kyp Malone (TV on the Radio)
11. Matisyahu
12. Brent Hinds (Mastodon)
13. James Mercer (The Shins)
14. Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters)
15. Common
16. Rivers Cuomo (Weezer, Harvard)
17. Jeff Tweedy (Wilco)
18. Ryan Adams
19. Bob Mould (Husker Du, Sugar)
20. DJ Danger Mouse

REVIEW: The Shins "Wincing the Night Away"

Rating: 7.5

It's been four long years since The Shins turned in the excellent Chutes Too Narrow, raising the collectively perceived IQ of indie-nerds and paving the way for our acceptance of The Decemeberists as lit-pop laureates of the soon-to-be post-something era. Since then James Mercer and company have received the double-edged endorsement of Zach Braff and more recently stellar promotion of the album by SubPop via a date-of-release appearance on Letterman following a guest spot on SNL earlier in the week... all leading to a Billboard debut of #2 behind boy-band Pretty Ricky, who I'm pretty sure doesn't exist. As a point of reference, SubPop's previous high water mark was The Afghan Whigs’ outstanding 1996 album Black Love which entered the chart at #79.

Wincing seems like a consciously reached half-way point between the roomy guitar and vocal atmosphere of their Oh, Inverted World debut and the hyper literate song craft of Chutes Too Narrow. The production slightly deemphasizes the central role of lyrical content and vocal performance leaving room for harmony, reverb and occasional empty spaces - musical forms just rich enough to balance the regular use of words like "conundrum" while rhyming "January" with "contrary" (track two, "Australia").

The album generally showcases the band's strengths in both regards without building a consistent theme or sense of direction. Things start off well enough with "Sleeping Lessons" whose drawn, tinkling introduction harkens back to early Shins before finding its pulse, stamping its way into the wide open pop of "Australia."

Track four offers the first and easily the best single on the album "Phantom Limb" which manages to blend their trademark simple melodies with vaguely complex lyrics capped by a soaring chorus as rewarding as mid-tempo emo-pop gets. It's a tough act to follow, and "Sea Legs" broken beat and backing strings ala Beck without the funk does not rise to the occasion, playing too long and allowing things to drift briefly into the doldrums.

This awkward transition might best exemplify the band's greatest strengths and few weaknesses. There is no questioning their ability to write engaging, smart pop tunes full of nuance, humor, and veiled social relevance so it should follow that an album full of such songs would make for a good album... right? Yes and no. Those keystone tracks in the middle of the disc fail to hold together a strong beginning and end. Songs are forced to live and die on their own without the aid of momentum to buoy difficult or plodding moments along. This can be forgiven on an album with multiple standouts, and Wincing has a few, but it isn't quite enough to bridge the gap between a being good record with really good songs and being a great record with really good songs.